Thursday, December 18, 2014

But in all seriousness if there's anything you want and it's got some age or an indie developer behind it chances are there's a deal to be had. Current 2 day sales are available for titles like: Metal Gear Solid 5 (33% off), Sniper Elite 3 (50% off) and ARMA 3 (35% off)And yes the trading cards and community voting are back too so here's your chance to get brand new kitsch!The deals aren't all that hot either but like most Steam sales you need to keep a vigil as flash sales can hit at any time.The sale is on till January 2nd, 2015

Monday, December 15, 2014

Beggars can't be choosers and free is generally worth every
penny you paid...

So when a company like EA or Valve is giving away something
you really don't have any room to complain if what's being offered doesn't meet
your expectations.

Still, if the "gift" amounts to a glorified door
prize the end result is burnt offerings.
If we're talking about games it's
either going to be old, unpopular or just more trouble than it's worth. If the "gift" is the promise of
trading something of value for even more value and it doesn't come to pass then it may be something else entirely.

Case in point: The Steam Holiday Auction.

It's the Holiday season and anyone who's got anything to
sell has an angle from Ebay to the local pet store. Valve's (Steam) angle is a so-called
auction. The premise is simple, use what
you already have to bid on games you want.

For the purposes of the "auction" your currency is
a "gem" or rather many gems.
Steam users can bid on games using gems crafted from the promotional
leftovers Valve gives away such as Trading Cards and other Steam specific
kitsch. Once a gem is crafted from these items it's
irreversible.

Sounds like a good deal right? After all you're only bidding with the digital
equivalent of a bumper sticker.

Except that that the Holiday auctionlooks more like a
glitzy bait and switch racket under the harshness of daylight. You see, the items you "sacrifice"
to craft gems for the auction actually have real value in the Steam "Marketplace." Just as its name implies the
"Marketplace" is a service that allows users to buy and sell game
related trading cards and the like for real money. Proceeds end up in the user's Steam wallet
and can be used to purchase games.

Here's the bait and switch...

Once you craft a gem from the kitsch in your inventory it
can't be undone. Meaning you lose the
ability to sell your items on the marketplace.
"Big deal," you say? Well,
here's the thing, the number of gems you get from your inventory items is
paltry and almost worthless compared to what you potentially could have made in
the marketplace.

A quick glance at the current auctions show bids in the tens
of thousands but it's unlikely you'll have anything near that even with a
healthy inventory of Steam trading cards in your account.

Worse, the titles up for "auction" largely consist
of unpopular "indie" titles or old games that are already deeply
discounted elsewhere.

Instead of an opportunity to reward the Steam community,
Valve has figured out a way to snooker them into trading a tiny bit of
something for a whole lot of nothing. Of
course all of this happens within the confines and context of Valve's sandbox
meaning they get to decide what's fair and just.

So much for giving back to the community.

With somewhat less suspicious motives, EA's Origin has been
offering up freebies all year. Starting
shortly after the Battlefield 4 launch debacle, EA's "On the House"
promotion has been treating users of its service to free digital copies of
selected game titles.

Beginning with the
hit game "Dead Space," and including Battlefield 3 and Plants Vs.
Zombies, the offerings that have come along every few months were a bit dated
but quality titles at least until now.

I say until now because it seems EA has decided to start
reaching back into the last century for its latest "freebies. "

In other words they've gone cheap...

Remember Crusader: No Remorse? Me either.
How about SimCity 2000? They may
have been groundbreaking back in the 90's when they were released but now
they're little more than relics and novelties.
Literally more trouble than they're worth and a reminder of how the good
old days really weren't that good.

But that's what free buys you at EA these days. Of course there's not much room to complain
considering the price you paid.

But again, just like the Steam Holiday auction, it's burnt
offerings with no other purpose than to legitimize a marketing campaign.

It's an insidious ploy.
Slap "Free" on anything and you take away the power to
question what's being offered. Dissent
is easily countered with charges of ingratitude even if the motives are less
than pure. In the case of EA, "On the
House" was likely little more than part of an overall marketing campaign of
damage control after BF4's disastrous launch.

In the case of Valve,
it's likely less about magnanimity than it is about moving stale products at
the expense of their customers. The
equation goes something like this:

Create a sales gimmick, say an "auction" that
relies on a sandboxed currency (gems) only available through the purchase of
your products. Those products have
attributes you can convert into auction currency but when you do so you find
out that the items up for bid are out of reach because of the paltry exchange
rate. Soon you find slow moving titles
selling like hotcakes as "bidders" clamor to get more currency by
buying up cheap games thinking they'll come out ahead.

The worst part is that when you look at the games up for
"auction" you find that most of them are stale titles whose
"gem" value exceeds what you'd normally be able to buy the game for. Since most of the auction items are
"donated" by developers it's nothing but pure profit for Valve.

The only part missing in a scheme like this is a charitable
tie in. If they donated 10% of sales to
a charity the whole thing would be considered beyond reproach.

Call me cynical but I'm starting to get a bad taste in my mouth
for the word "free."

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Free means without cost, without restriction, without encumbrances.
We're all familiar with the phrases, "Free will" or "Free
beer." If we get all philosophical
about it there's much more serious sounding uses of the word like "Free
speech" and "A Free Society."

All of them, without exception, mean the same thing. Specifically that nothing should get in the
way of whatever is supposed to be "free."

Unfortunately, when someone came up with a game model dubbed
"Free to play" we were forced to reexamine our understanding of the
word "Free."

Warface is a
recent entry into the "Free to play" arena and unlike much of its RPG
stable mates, is the first FPS of any quality to be offered up free of charge.

At least that's the promise...

The first time you load the game you'll see a typical FPS
shooter with graphics that while not cutting edge are at least on par with
those of Battlefield 3 without the
eye candy turned on. You'll also find an
ample if not somewhat busy user interface complete with a "safe
house" for you to learn the mechanics of the game without having to dodge
an opposing team's ammunition. There's
even training missions that allow you to earn in-game bux (not real $$) to fix weapons, etc.
Yes, you heard that right, you can "break" a weapon.

Nice features, in fact a few that current triple-A titles
would do well to emulate. Well, maybe
not the broken weapons thing but I digress...

Even Battlefield 4 still has a clunky "test range"
map that is all but hidden in the game options.
In Warface, the "Safe
House" is right up front.

The play is almost textbook Call of Duty-esque "sandboxing" with 3 primary play
modes: Co-op, Versus and Survival.
Co-op and Versus offer some variety in map selection with Versus
offering the additional contexts of traditional Deathmatch, Objective and
Capture the Flag "-esque" modes found in other FPS games. One thing that does stand out about Warface, however, is its focus on
cooperative gameplay regardless of the play mode chosen. Only in Deathmatch do you ever really suffer
the typical Call of Duty multiplayer
"run and gun" affair. Meaning you're always with a buddy and you don't
always have to play a pure multiplayer game.

That's a perspective I can appreciate as the term
"cooperative" gameplay is often just a misnomer for "online multiplayer."

Look at it this way. Playing a multiplayer game with friends is
often like trying to pick up somebody at the airport when you don't know what
flight they're on or when they'll show up.

Cooperative gameplay, on the other hand, is like taking a road trip with
a friend.

Not that Warface
is a perfect iteration of the concept.
Far from it. Finding your
"friend" involves adding them to a "chat" list and then
hoping you can join their game before all the available slots fill up.

Of course you can start your own co-op
session but unless you've got at least 4 in your party nothing's going to
happen unless somebody just happens along.

Meaning we have a bit of multiplayer creep if not a bit of Call of Duty's awful "player
matching" going on.

Before I forget, there's another game mode, "Survival"
but it's really just waves of baddies and to play it you have to achieve a
certain rank or XP to unlock it. Something
I'm not likely to do and I'll tell you why in a minute.

So far Warface sounds
pretty good right? I mean who wouldn't
want a Call of Duty clone focused on
co-op and built on the Crytek (Crysis)
engine for free?

Ah, but there's that word again, "Free."

Every time I launch the game and suffer through what seems
like a agonizingly lazy progress bar I'm instantly assaulted with prompts to
visit the "store" or partake in the "deal" of the day. It happens at the end of gaming sessions too
and there's an ever present "nag" at the bottom center of all the
lobby screens encouraging you to buy, buy buy!

There's an old marketing phrase that military types like to quote
from. You know the one. It's usually preceded with stirring music, jets
streaking overhead all while a bunch of guys in camouflage stand there
saluting. It goes, "Freedom isn't
free" and neither is Warface.

It seems you're forever assaulted with prompts to buy
upgrades, skins and outfits. In my time
with the game I've been offered special weapons, explosives and experience
boosters that would clearly give me an advantage. However, I've noticed that you don't seem to
really "buy" much of anything.
You "rent" it.

For example, I've been offered special smoke grenades and
sniper rifles on a "trial" basis for a limited amount of time after
which the item is removed from you inventory.

Thing is, even if you do buy an upgrade, you're still just
renting the equipment for 30, 60 or even 90 days after which you have to buy it
all over again.

All you've gained is an
extension on your "lease."

I suppose that's one way to guarantee a revenue stream for a
game that's otherwise "Free."

While I understand that Crytek has to make money on Warface somehow their chosen model is
nothing short of the epitome of greed.
Too many so-called "Free to play" games are really "Pay
to Win" and Warface enthusiastically
embraces the practice.

That's no surprise especially with the obvious development
that's gone into the game. What makes Warface especially egregious, however,
is forcing players to continually buy the same weapons just to continue
playing.

So you save your pennies, buy your upgrades only to have
them taken away if you don't ante up again.

Sure, you don't HAVE to buy anything. You can get a few games in and still be a
freeloader if you want but much like the "Premium" subscriptions so
common these days, you'll soon find yourself outmatched and locked out of
"special" events.

So in the world of "Freemium" we have a new worst
offender, Warface. A game whose promise is trumped by its
publisher's greed.

Free in the context of Warface
is analogous to being a freed slave in the post-Antebellum South. You may have been free but you didn't have
many opportunities.

That analogy came too easy for a post about a video
game. To me that indicates how wrong the
Warface model is.

It's a shame too as I'd have gladly paid $20 for a good
co-op FPS that wasn't always trying to pick my pocket. I've always said that Call of Duty's greatest strength was its single player storyline
and the cooperative game modes that grew out of them.

Alas, even Call of
Duty doesn't know how to do Co-op anymore.
I was hoping Warface could
have filled the void but it seems the only void it's aimed at is the one
created by its revenue model.

Monday, December 8, 2014

I've been busy....I've got some great new videos posted that I did with my gaming buddy Shotglass. 2 are from the new game Shadow of Mordor 1, from the freemium FPS from Crytek, Warface and 2 from Battlefield 4.